April 22, 2008

Still curious about the few things:

Why are all our candidates for elected office spending more time bashing their opponents then telling me what they are going to do to make my life better? I don’t care if your opponent uses a different style of gel in his hair and we can’t send that type of people to Washington. Tell me how you’re going to lower gas prices and then maybe you’ll get my vote.

Why is Hillary Clinton allowed to lie about taking sniper fire in Bosnia and why is the mainstream media not making a complete ass out of her? It blows my mind that this kind of arrogant individual who believes that the Democratic nomination is her birthright is not kicked out of the contest for this obvious bald-faced lie. Then again, they don’t call CNN the Clinton News Network for nothing.

Why people put stock in the Rev. Pat Robertson? I’m a conservative Christian and even I think that he gives God and Jesus a bad name.

Why Mark Madden has a radio show?

Why is Sean Waltman still in wrestling? The only thing he contributed was the phrase “X-Pac heat” to the lexicon of wrestling fan language and a bad sex tape with his then-fiance Joanie Laurer. He had no talent and the only reason he got a job in the WWF (still refuse to call it WWE) and WCW was because he was buddies with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. Add to the fact that he had a physique that made Greg Gagne look like Scott Stiener and you’ve got a guy that wore out his welcome back in 1995.

Why Shane Douglas is managing a Target in Pittsburgh and not being treated as one of the best workers in the business?

How in the hell are they going to top last week’s episode of Battlestar Galactica?

April 18, 2008

The fact that there is an alleged film of Marilyn Monroe giving oral sex to a gentleman and the fact that J. Edgar Hoover allegedly brought in other women to determine if the man is in fact JFK.

The fact that John Byrne still tries to be revelent in the comic world when he hasn’t done anything of note since 1988.

The fact that Paris Hilton hasn’t succumbed to some sort of venereal disease yet.

The fact that the Chicago Bears may be even worse this year.

The fact that people still believe that Bill Frist knows what he is talking about. Here is a secret, he doesn’t.

The fact that the members of my party, the Republican Party, continue to follow George W. Bush’s lead like lemmings going over the cliff. We need to find a new direction as a party in order to regain the public’s trust.

The fact that Kim Kardashian, for some strange reason, is actually considered famous.

The fact that I’ve known my wife for nearly 10 years and have been married to her for six and she still hasn’t beaten the hell out of me for some of the stupid stuff that flies out of my mouth.

The fact that Stevie Ray Vaughn is dead and Aaron and Nick Carter are still alive and putting out s*** music.

The fact that Hillary Clinton hasn’t given up yet. But on the bright side, the longer she tears apart the Democratic party and all but assures a Republican victory in November.

The fact that I have a loving family and I have done absolutely nothing to deserve them.

April 18, 2008

Hunter S. Thompson said in his great book entitled “Generation of Swine” that journalism is a drug, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. It is a drug, a wonderfully addictive drug that I have been taking for nearly 14 years now.
However, I refuse to call myself a “journalist.” I’m not. A journalist is someone like Bob Woodward. An individual who writes thought-provoking, well-researched pieces that make people think and bring light to injustices.
I’ve never done anything like that. Usually I write dry meeting stories with an occasional feature piece thrown in. To be totally honest, that’s how I like it. I’ve live and work in a small town and that appeals to me. I love to report on small-town happenings. If I lived in a city and had to deal with an editor that was constantly over my shoulder and telling me to rewrite certain paragraphs 80 times because he can’t connect with, I’d probably rearrange the shape of his head with a computer monitor.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked for some bad editors — two in particular. Both of these guys were a******* with thoughts (delusions) actually that they were better than their reporters. Let me tell you something, when you refuse to even leave your office and associate with the public that you serve, and to be more specific, when the public you serve don’t even know who the hell you are, you’re not superior to your reporters. You’re an idiot.
Being a good editor and reporter requires you to be in the public. I hate spending time in the office. I’d rather be on the phone talking to a contact or running out to take photos at either a school event. I like being in the public despite the fact that some people drive me up the damn wall.
So anyway, getting back to the original subject — if you work at the New York Times and are working on a massive series regarding the public injustice of the national welfare system, you’re a journalist. If you’re working at a small-town paper and you’re writing a piece on why people can’t pick up after their dogs, you’re a plain and simple reporter.
And being just a reporter is a not a bad thing at all.

April 1, 2008

I know that I have posted a new blog in over a week, mainly because I was having trouble finding a topic. However, thanks to the events of Wrestlemania 24, I now have that topic.

When I first became a wrestling fan in 1990, I was a WWF junkie. I was a fan of Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior and those big, slow-moving egotists that populated that federation during the late 80s and early 90s.

Then one day in late 1990, I was flipping channels and came across WTBS — the old Superstation — and noticed this blond-haired, big nosed loud mouth talking about how he was “The Man” and to “Be the man, you have to beat The Man.” And all the while he was going off on this capitivating rant — it was against his opponent Sting at the 1990 Great American Bash — he kept showing off this huge gold belt and stating that it was the real world’s championship.

I had no idea who this guy was, but I was instantly intrigued. So I did a little research, mainly from the Bill Apter magazines that were on the newsstands (and Bill, you’re welcome for your gameroom that I helped subsidized) and learned about the National Wrestling Alliance and its world champion, Ric Flair.

Needless to say, I was hooked. Every Saturday night — anyone else remember WCW Saturday Night from 6:05 to 8:05 p.m. ? — I would tune it to hear from the Nature Boy Ric Flair and learn more about this number two promotion named World Championship Wrestling (which was formerly Jim Crockett Promotions).

I saw a few Flair matches during that time and instantly was amazed by his abilities. I was originally introduced to wrestling that it was a bunch of big, steroid-upped muscle-heads who couldn’t wrestle for three minutes without blowing up. And here’s Ric Flair, at 245 pounds, working 20, 30 and some times even 45 minute matchs without looking winded. It was through Flair’s work that I became more attentive to the work of Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Brian Pillman, Bobby Eaton and of course, one of my all-time favorites, Arn Anderson.

Then in the summer of 1991, I was tuned in to a WWF program when I saw Bobby Heenan come out to talk to the masses and in his hands was Flair’s world championship. For me, as a true fan, I was jumping up and down with joy because I was sure that Ric Flair was not far behind. And I was correct.

Now fast forward 17 years later and the man that I spent a good part of my life watching is now retiring, and of course, after tearing the house down with Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 24. I watched a little of the match on YouTube and I was choking up at the end. As Michaels said the night before during the Hall of Fame induction of Flair, “if you don’t know who Ric Flair is, then you’ve been living under a rock for the past 30 years.”

Thanks to the magic of DVD, I have a lot of Flair’s classic matches. Such as the three match series from 1989 with Ricky Steamboat, a 1987 classic with Barry Windham, the 1992 Royal Rumble where he lasted over an hour and won the WWF championship and one match that perfectly encapsulates how good Flair was at getting people over — a 1984 match with Jay Youngblood that went to a 10-minute draw on JCP’s television program that really, in my opinion, made Youngblood a legitimate title contender to the NWA World Championship.

Triple H made a statement during Saturday’s Hall of Fame ceremony that “I’m still waiting to hear the argument that Ric Flair is not the greatest of all time.” There’s a reason why that argument will never be made — because the Nature Boy is the greatest ever.